TJ Dillashaw and the Death of the Flyweight Division

Listen? Do you hear that? That’s the sound of a bunch of tiny voices crying out in unison? No, no one is nuking the Shire and the Keebler Elf Cookie Factory. It’s the UFC men’s flyweight division, which may be shutting down soon.

If you’ll recall, the UFC traded longtime “star” Demetrious Johnson to ONE Championship, and though reigning champ Henry Cejudo is still alive and kicking at 125 pounds, just about everyone else in the division has been handed pink slips. Now there’s even news that bantamweight king TJ Dillashaw will be moving down to face Cejudo, maybe even become a double-champ (which is all the rage these days).

Dillashaw is cool about being a kind of divisional hitman. He said as much on Ariel Helwani’s show yesterday. As per MMAFighting:

“The UFC wants to get rid of the division and they hired me to go down and close it and get another belt in the process,” Dillashaw said.

“It’s a win-win for me. They’re paying me a f*ck-load of money to move down and kill the 125-pound division and collect a second belt. So, it’s game time.”

But while all signs point to the UFC dissolving the flyweight division after the Cejudo-Dillashaw superfight, there has still been no official word that that’s the plan. Over the weekend, UFC President Dana White even suggested that they are “working on some things right now with that division” though he didn’t elaborate on what those things are. But for Dillashaw, it all seems pretty clear once he beats Cejudo.

“It seems like I’m gonna take it over, man,” said Dillashaw. “I mean, if I’m the champ in both weight classes, why even have it? All the attention is at 135 anyway so at the end of the day, make the guys that they believe should stick around, come up and challenge for the belt.”

Really, we shouldn’t weep too much for a weight class that no one really cared for. But still, there are some tough 125 pounders out there, not even counting “Mighty Mouse” and Cejudo. Hopefully everyone cut loose lands somewhere nice.